What is the general setting you have for your card when running FS9?Have a 9700pro, 2AA/4AF and run at 1280 res on a P4 2.8 processor. Noticing a lot of stutter lately, and I am wondering if it is because of the 4.5 cats or too high of settings running 2AA/4AF

I run the card's default "high quality" setting, which uses 2x AA and 8x AF.

I've settled on 4X/16X on my 9800 Pro - prior to using the FS-GS service, I was running 2X/8X most of the time. I can run 6X/16X now, but I knocked the AA down to 4X because it still gets too slow with AS2004 cloudbanks onscreen...

4xAA & 16xAF (performance mode) with everything else maxed in the card menu. Vsync Off; Truform off.

Make sure there isn't a program in your task manager named updsys.exe.It is a worm that eats your virtual memory and A LOT of FS2004 performance. I had it happen to me and my FS performance went right in the toilet out of nowhere...that's how I discovered it.BTW, FS2004 doesn't have to be running for it (the worm) to be active AND if you do have it, don't try to "end process" the sysupd.exe...it only replicates itself.

Would you be kind enough to give us some more information on this?What is the 'updsys.exe' and what does it do? Is it something that the ATI drivers put in? A virus? If the latter, why not detected by fully updated Norton ?Thanks for any adv.Regards,George DorkofikisAthens, Greecehttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/betaimg.jpg

I believe it is relatively new.A friend of mine detected it with Mcafee Anti virus but the program couldn't destroy it. Hijak This could stop it either, nor could Norton.The "Updsys.exe" worm won't let you close it. Every time you try to erase it or close it the program will replicate itself. It eats your virtual memory until your machine will no longer functions and causes you to restart. Granted this takes a while you DO notice a decrease in system performance immediately (FS appears choppy and stutters quite often. I literally went from 120+ FPS with full AI to around 30 FPS w/full AI...then next time I opened FS (closed it to check my mail) it was 10 FPS. If you take a look at my system specs then you can tell something wasn't right! :-lolI restored my sytem to a few days earlier (before the worm popped up) and everything is back to normal again. It can be destroyed but it isn't an easy process. The file cannot be closed or disabled and it cannot be deleted. It's a real pain in the ......You can do a search for it on google and get quite bit more info.Hope this helps!:)

Thanks.If the updsys.exe (or sysupd.exe) is not a windows element, it can be deleted. Of course, one will have to use the good old dos like command prompt in safe mode, but it's possible.I'm probably clean as no suspicious emails go through (I check and delete all suspicious emails from the web before downloading them), and I also have a very good firewall running.But it's good to know and I'll check.Thanks for the infoGeorge DorkofikisAthens, Greecehttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/betaimg.jpg

Sorry about that I meant updsys.exe.One guy deleted it in safe mode on one of the tech forums and it came back somehow....a search of "updsys.exe" on google will yield some interesting finds.Again, sorry, I meant "updsys.exe.":)

NM..I spelled it right the first time,I misread your post.Sorry, I am REALLY tired. :-lolAs I was saying before, some guy had deleted it in Safe Mode but it had returned somehow, IIRC. I can't remember the link but it does show up on Google when you type in "How to remove updsys.exe" (without quotes). I might have read the post wrong concerning the removal while in Safe Mode and it not working but I don't think so...you might want to go have a looksy just to be sure.Sorry if I am not more help. I am just finding this stuff out myself about the updsys.exe thing.:)